Even though David Warner was struggling with the bat in the longest format of the game, Australia backed him for the World Test Championship finale against India. The southpaw eventually stepped up and helped his team start well as the cricketer hit 43 runs off 60 deliveries and most importantly, tackled Mohammed Shami and Mohammed Siraj well during a difficult phase.
Interestingly, Warner also changed his guard in Test cricket. He made a deep hole close to the wickets in order to safeguard himself from going too deep into the crease. He also made a deep line that ran parallel to the stumps behind the crease in order to assess his movements. Speaking about the same, senior Australia batter Steve Smith hilariously explained that the hole was so deep that he almost twisted his ankle in the first few deliveries. He went on to add that it took him some time to understand but eventually got habituated to it.
“Yeah, I almost fell in it. I kind of, I didn't really move around it. I got used to it eventually, but almost twisted my ankle the first few balls I faced out there to be honest. Then I sort of got used to it, but it was odd. I'd never experienced that before on that side really," Smith was quoted as saying by India Today.
“You occasionally get the edge of the footmarks, you know, the back end of a game, second innings where you kind of fall into them and you're a bit, yeah, I don't know, just off balance, but when I'm moving to off stump and I've got this hole there, it was something I hadn't experienced before, but maybe I need to do it more often, it worked for me, so he can keep digging that hole I suppose,” the 34-year-old added.
Meanwhile, courtesy of Smith and Travis Head’s brilliant partnership of 285 runs on day 1, Australia posted 469 runs on board in the first innings. Meanwhile, Indian batters struggled to get going with the bat as the Rohit Sharma-led side is 151/5 after Day 2. They are currently trailing by 318 runs.
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